254 Personal and ScientiHc News. 
studies contemplated on the drift of New York state, in con- 
nection with his otttcial duties in the New York state museum. 
Prof. R. D. Salisbury, of Beloit, Wisconsin, recently made 
a careful examination of the plan and equipment of the new 
Science Hall and Museum of the Minnesota State University, 
Minneapolis. 
CoL. Fielding Burnes, brother of the late Representative 
Burnes of Missouri, has resigned the position of special dis- 
bursing agent of the U. S. geological survey. 
Mr. D. W. Langdon, Jr., who has been for a number of 
years connected with the Alabama geological survey, has 
entered upon the duties of geologist and consulting mining 
engineer of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway, with headquar- 
ters at Richmond, Va. 
Dr. H. M. Chance, has returned from the Choctaw Nation, 
Indian Territory, where he made an extended examination of 
Choctaw coal lands. Dr. Chance has opened an office in Phil- 
adelphia, and his permanent address hereafter will be 418 
Drexel Building. 
Mr. G. E. Bailey has been appointed professor of Met- 
allurgy at the Dakota School of Mines, Rapid City, to suc- 
ceed Prof. H. 0. Hofman. 
The Familiar Experiment of setting roofing-slates on edge 
upright in a dish of water, and noting how far the water as- 
cends by capillary attraction in the substance of the slate, is 
one of the best tests that can be made. In a good slate the 
water should rise only slightly above the surrounding surface. 
A slate which draws up the water to a considerable hight 
should be avoided as likely to be destroyed b}'^ frosts and 
weathering. American Architect. 
Allotropic Forms of Silver. According to M. M. Carey 
Lea, in the American Journal of Science^ June, "Silver is 
capable of existing in allotropic forms possessing qualities 
differing greatly from those of normal silver. There are three 
such forms, or rather three modifications of one form, differ- 
ing from each other in many respects, but all more nearly re- 
lated to each other than any one of them to normal silver. 
One of these forms is soluble in water, passing readily to an 
insoluble form, and this last may, by the simple presence of a 
neutral substance exercising no chemical action upon it, re- 
cover its solubility. Another form closely resembles gold in 
color and lustre. These allotropic forms of silver are broadly 
distinguished from normal silver by color, by properties, and 
by chemical reactions. They not improbably represent a 
a more active condition of silver, of which common, or nor- 
mal, silver may be a polymerized form. Something analogous 
has already been observed with other metals, lead and 
copper." 
The Eiffel Tower. In the New BeviewMv. Eiffel states 
